Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is often used to provide authentication and access control in an enterprise. Authentication may include a method for identifying a user to the system. Access control may involve what the user is allowed to see and do once the user has been identified. As part of the access control, a LDAP directory service may be configured to administer organizational information such as user assignment to groups during authentication.
In addition to LDAP directory service, multiple systems and products in an enterprise environment may provide authentication and contain customization of access control schemes. Similar to LDAP directory service, these systems and products may have repositories to store properties, roles and rights of users for authentication and access control. One challenge in such heterogeneous environments is the ability to seamlessly and efficiently integrate other systems and products in the enterprise with LDAP directory service.
For example, administrators may have implemented directory server within an organization prior to and/or post a LDAP implementation. To leverage the external LDAP server and repository, authorities for authentication and access control may need to be imported and/or exported. The mapping between the existing directory server data and the LDAP repository may be problematic and inefficient when performed manually. Going through multiple steps of wizard configuration to manually align users and groups is both laborious and error prone.
There is a need, therefore, for an improved method or system that would efficiently and effectively import and/or export authorities for backup software of storage system.